December HMIS Newsletter - Auto-Copied Project Entry Questions Coming Soon

Department of CommerceHMIS Banner

December 2016

Please forward to other interested parties.

Auto-Copied Project Entry Questions Coming Soon

Project Entry Questions will auto-copy  starting in 2017

For better data quality and ease of use, throughout December our HMIS team will be setting all Balance of State (BOS) projects to automatically copy entry questions from one project entry to another project entry if it falls within 21 days from the previous project entry. Enabling this feature for each project will happen in phases with a goal to have all Balance of State projects done by the start of the new year

Which projects and records are affected?

Auto-copying can only be done between projects within the same agency or that are part of the same data sharing group. Only entry answers (not exit answers) will copy over to a new project record. If the last exit was more than 21 days from the new entry, the answers will not cascade and all entry answers will need to be answered from scratch as they are now. Check Your Auto-Copied Data

We will post a tutorial document on how to use this feature on our HMIS webpage

Click to Learn More

Point in Time Count, Housing Inventory Count and Annual Report of local project expenditures coming soon

Your team at Commerce is looking forward to a new year of reporting and data gathering. Expect to see changes to how we gather housing inventories, Point in Time counts and expenditure data this year. We’ll be in touch throughout December, January and February about how to check your inventories and PIT counts in Clarity. You’ll get trained soon on how to enter PIT data in the new HMIS. Please contact your local PIT coordinator or Ian Kinder-Pyle (email) for any questions you have about this year’s PIT count, housing inventory updates or expenditure reporting.  PIT Count trainings will be posted on the website soon.

Click to Learn More

HMIS Tip of the Month: Test Data Procedures

We recommend that you don’t enter fake or test client data into HMIS. If you find you have a need to do so you have two options: you can contact our HMIS team to request use of our training site or if you need to use HMIS please follow the procedures outlined below:

  • Keep a list of Unique Identifiers so that when you are finished with your testing you can email any Commerce team member with a list of fake clients to delete within 14 calendar days;
  •  In the First Name field in Clarity, add the word “Test”;
  •  In the Alias field in Clarity, add either your County name or the three-letter prefix of your username.

Commerce will clean up data on a regular basis, and we’ll use the values entered above to quickly ensure no fake or test data is being reported as valid. If you have valid data with “Test” for a first name and/or County or three-letter codes for an Alias and find they are accidentally deleted during a regular clean up exercise, please contact Commerce help desk and we will restore the deleted record.

      email us